These comments brought to my mind something that I have puzzled about for a considerable time; the origin of the name of "marmalade" - you know, the very English tangy and bitter-sweet jam (US: jelly) we put on bread or toast, especially at breakfast time. You could describe the contents of a jar of marmalade as 'marbled'.

For anyone who doesn't know, marmalade is made from the flesh and sliced or chopped peel of (preferably) sharp and bitter oranges from Sevilla in southern Spain, boiled with sugar and water to a setting point, together with the fruit's natural pectin from the pips, to give a firm set, then bottled. Good quality marmalade is a real speciality, and tastes delicious on hot toast with real butter. Mmmm!

As to my chosen signature...My "classical" education was more Latin than Greek, so I have actually never ever read, let alone studied, Ovid. I followed scientific disciplines in my professional life, only recently taking an interest in classical themes.What struck me about "Omnia Mutantur, Nihil Interit" was its timeless and literally universal applicability, a sentiment coined long before voluntary "recycling" or "make do and mend" initiatives were launched in the last century, and are becoming ever more important. Of course, a mistake made by every human generation since individual thought became possible, has been in believing that "we" have been the first to have what seems to be an original thought.Sam

and, of course >>a sentiment coined long before voluntary "recycling" or "make do and mend" initiatives were launched in the last century<< was only coined after we had strated to become, to some extent, a 'throw-away society'. In the C19 and the preceding centuries, everything was kept and reused until it, literally, fell to bits and was irreparable. If you were rich enough to cast things off before they were totally useless, then you passed them on down the line, either as gifts to your servants or sold to the second-hand shope which abounded.(like Charity shops in UK today!)It is only mass production techniques (and global ease of transport!) that has made it more expensive tor ecycle than to make new.

Another variant, a more recent coining with similar sentiments, and made in a working environment (I know, I was there) where technical and scientific people made their living, but were about to be made redundant, was "The Only Constant in Life is Change".

This will have particular resonance for anyone trained in mathematical or scientific disciplines, where the very concept of a constant relies on it being unchanging, immutable.

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